2022 Is Going Great

Hello

(Agrippa Postumus or a young Voldemort)

Happy New Year!

Me and Celine have Covid. Omicron strain of it to be exact. I'm not even sure that is correctly exact? Is it a strain? A variant? Hardly matters. Only point worth noting is that besides a sucky flu, sore throat and some pains in our chest and stomachs at various points we are OK. It's not been fun but we are doing alright.

Anyway, I still have to write a blog, edit a podcast episode of Tyrants In Training for Wednesday and write a short script for a political drama for Thursday. Damn writing commitments!

Little bit of a warning, I might end this blog early. I will explain my current thought process on the political drama short and not worry too much about blog length. Screw it, I'm still in the midst of this Omicron stuff so I'm going to cut myself some slack.

Political drama!

I mentioned on my twitter page that I didn't want to just write a comedy. It seems the obvious route for me to take would be to find some political story and then make a comedy out of it. My features often had characters in powerful positions like politicians, military leaders who were oblivious to how stupid and snobbish they were. Or take a situation that isn't political and make it political. Think of any issue that ends up becoming a left vs right issue. I guess an idea like "Meteor about to hit Earth" sounds like being above politics so a short idea might be based around how people make that catastrophic emergency into a policy issue.

But again, that's me beginning to brainstorm comedy ideas for this political drama genre and I don't want that. Luckily I have another idea lined up to some extent. I may have mentioned it in a previous blog. Now it's another trip to ancient Rome:

Agrippa Postumus was the grandson of the first Roman emperor, Augustus and the son of the famous Roman general Marcus Agrippa. Marcus was one of the reason's Rome's first emperor was Augustus. Augustus owed a lot of his military victories to Marcus and the two were long time close friends since their early years. Marcus died the same year of Agrippa Postumus's birth so he never knew his father.

Now Augustus was a great emperor for the Empire but he had a terrible time trying to find an heir. The second emperor, Tiberius, doesn't seem to have been a happy choice for Augustus and was only picked because Augustus had nobody else to choose. Which is odd because, well sure, other potential heirs died before Augustus but Agrippa Postumus was still very much alive. So why not the son of Augustus's close friend? Marcus the famous general's son surely would have enough good will to be brought in to be an heir candidate? But no?

Agrippa Postumus never became heir. What we know is, Postumus was exiled to the island of Pianosa, a small flat island between the Italian mainland and Corsica. Postumus was exiled and the senate was warned never to allow him back to Rome. We don't really have an idea why exactly but his story doesn't really end there.

When Augustus was near his final days he left Rome for a final time and visited Pianosa along with a close senator and friend. Again, we don't know why or what happened when he met his grandson. The only thing known is Augustus and his senator friend left the island and shortly died. Once Augustus passed, Postumus was immediately executed by the praetorian guard (Emperor's personal bodyguards). This could have been on orders of Tiberius but he swore this not to be the case as he was far from Rome when Augustus died and Postumus executed. There is a version where Augustus, on his death bed, gave his final order to murder Postumus. Such a threat he was to everyone.

But other than that? Who knows that went on? But it's very interesting to speculate. So that's my political drama. The meeting between Posutmus, Augustus and his friend.

I have to keep in mind this is low budget. I can't really get too detailed on the Emperor's guards joining them or anything. I don't want to have this just be three men talking and then end. So I need to put in some real dread into the Postumus character. I mean, really, how psychotic was this grandson to have him exiled as if he was an unstable Sauron?

But that's my idea anyway. Hope I can actually sit and write it. I've been pretty tired the last few days. This blog has taken a bit longer than usual and I'm fairly sure it'll turn out to be a delusional mess.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Kevin Kevin